Posted on 17 November 2012

If you’ve bought anything from an online retailer, you may have seen an option to use a coupon code during checkout and you may have even used one yourself. But if you’re selling things online yourself, would it be a good idea to make coupons available to your customers? There are many reasons why this strategy can be beneficial for you in the end. Here are some of them:

Drivers Budget Conscious Customers and Comparison Shoppers

One of the main reasons people shop online is because they have the ability to quickly and easily compare prices between different retailers. An ever increasing number of people are more conscious of how much money they’re spending when shopping online and they want to get the best deals. This is why searches for coupon codes are getting a lot of traction on Google. Sure, some people may simply buy something because it had a flashy ad, or will just buy whatever they want without considering the price. But unless your target audience is “lazy rich people”, including coupons as part of your marketing strategy will be a good idea.

Encourages Affiliates to Promote Your Site

There are now thousands of websites which list coupon codes for various e-commerce sites. If you do a search for [merchant name] + coupon on Google, you will see plenty of them pop up. Some are specific to a certain genre of retailer, while others are more general coupon sharing sites. But those who run these websites don’t do this simply for fun. As you’ve probably noticed, they include affiliate links to the sites that they have coupons for, so that when someone uses a coupon from their website and clicks through to the merchant, they will get a commission. There are many other affiliate sites which promote specific merchants more simply because they offer discount and coupon codes that make them more attractive to their audience. Therefore, making coupons available gives an incentive for your affiliates to promote your site more. It can create a win-win-win scenario for everyone: the customer gets a lower price, the affiliate gets a commission and you get increased traffic and sales to your business.

It Encourages Social Sharing

Coupon codes for online shopping sites are rapidly becoming an item that is shared a lot on various social media sites. In fact, people are far more likely to talk about an online shopping site if they offer discounts, special promotions and coupon codes. If you include coupons on your social media page, this draws more attention to your post and makes it more likely that it will be shared. Tomorrow we will take a more detailed look at how coupons can be a part of your social media marketing strategy. If you’re thinking of making your social media use more efficient, including them in your posts can be a definite way to turn things around for your business.

Posted on 28 October 2012

Yesterday, we’ve seen some reasons as to why your Facebook page might not be giving you the results you had originally hoped for. But there are actually more issues that could be the cause of the problem. Today, we will examine some more of these and will give you a few solutions that you can employ as well.

Here are some more reasons behind common Facebook problems and ways to resolve them:

You don’t participate in the conversation

If you start seeing some responses to your posts, or people posting stuff on your Facebook page, you should respond to them. Do this from the very beginning. If your fans see your page and notice that you don’t bother to answer questions or comments that others have made, they will figure: nah, why bother? They won’t answer me either, so I’m just wasting my time by commenting.

It has been shown that companies which engage their users actively on Facebook get better results: more participation, more shares and more likes, which results in more fans coming in and more sales.

You don’t update your page consistently

This is another turn off for users. If your page isn’t updated on a regular basis, it just looks like a ghost town: there are a few things there, but in general, it looks lifeless and deserted. Many people won’t be too comfortable speaking on your page if they notice they will be alone. And if you haven’t posted anything in quite a while, they may assume you’ve simply abandoned your page or that your company went out of business. So once again, the users will think: why bother? I’m just wasting my time here.

Now it’s important not to exaggerate in the other sense either. Don’t post just for the sake of posting. Have something useful to say, but post once every few days at least. This will make your page look more alive and inviting.

Your target audience doesn’t use Facebook much

They all say that Facebook is simply the best in the world when it comes to social media. Hey, everyone, no matter their age group or interests, uses Facebook, right? True, but there are some who use it less than others. Figure out what your target audience is. Then, figure out what social networking sites they use.

If you have something that’s really artistic, maybe using Instagram or Pinterest may draw more attention to your business, as these networks are heavier on the “visual sharing” aspect of things. If you’re in the B2B industry, perhaps your audience members use Facebook for personal reasons, but not so much for business. They prefer to use LinkedIn. Also, don’t forget discussion boards, forums and other niche specific online communities. These are social sites too!

This doesn’t mean that you should simply scrap your Facebook page thinking that it’s useless. It’s not. Having a presence on various social networks can be beneficial, but you need to be aware that some networks will give you better results than others.

Posted on 20 September 2012

For email marketers, the holidays are a time where increased opportunities are plentiful. Even though we’re still far away from the Christmas shopping season, it is time to start planning your campaigns now for a few reasons. First, you have Halloween coming in about a month, which could be an opportunity for online retailers to launch special sales and promotions. Then, you have Black Friday coming a few weeks later. While it’s mostly associated with crowds of thousands of people lining up outside stores to get their hands on merchandise at clearance prices, there is an ever increasing number of Black Friday shoppers that prefer to do their shopping online, thus skipping out on the long lineups and the crowds. If you want your sales numbers to look good this holiday season, or if you think there are certain things you could do better this year, then applying these tips will help you make the most out of it.

Check How Things Went Last Year

If you’ve been using email marketing to promote your business in during the last holiday season, you may want to take a look at your stats to see how things went. Are you satisfied with the number of sales you’ve made, as well as your click through and email open rates? Are there things that you think you should do better this year? Even if you think your last campaign was quite a success, there are always small things that you can improve to make it even better this year.

Plan Your Mailing Schedule

Sending out emails more frequently during the holiday shopping season is simply common sense. Even with paper advertising, you see that there’s an increase in “junk mail” that arrives in your mailbox, anything from store fliers, catalogs, coupons, etc. get sent to you almost daily. There’s a reason the big outfits do this: because it works. Those who don’t change their mailing schedule to communicate with their target audience more often during the holidays are likely to miss out on some potential sales.

Every business type is unique. Some companies can send out emails on a daily basis to their customers in the period running up to a holiday. For others, it may not always be such a good idea to send daily mailings, but would still be good to increase the frequency at which you get in touch.

It may also be a good idea to see what your competitors are doing, such around what period they start to increase their mailings. According to statistics shown by Market Watch, 2 days leading up to Black Friday and the first two Mondays of December are the days where marketers send out the most promotional emails related to their holiday promotions.

But sending out emails more often isn’t enough. You still need to have good content in them as well as an overall marketing strategy that will help boost your sales. Tomorrow you will see more tips on how to make this holiday season the most profitable one yet for your company.

Posted on 14 August 2012

If you have a Facebook page for your business, then you’re on the way to using social media in order to better connect with your target audience and maybe boost your sales numbers. But simply having a presence on social networks is not enough if you want to bring something positive for your business. You need to ensure that you’re using your social networking presence to its fullest potential. Here are a few tips that will help you accomplish this:

Make Your Posts Unique and Interesting

Many of your fans on Facebook will also be readers of your blog or subscribed to your email list. As such, don’t simply repost things that you’ve said somewhere else. This is one of the ways to lose your subscribers attention, as they already had seen the content through another distribution channel. Getting their attention back after could be difficult. While it is normal for you to refer to some posts that you have up on your blog or some items on your website, be sure to add some unique content once in a while too.

Avoid Pointless Grabs for Attention

You would be surprised, but there are many small business owners that make posts which offer very little value on a regular basis, such as “Hey! How’s everyone doing?” or “The sun is really shining today!”. Your subscribers probably already get their share of pointless wall posts from their friends. There is no need to have more of it coming from your business. Again, this is another way to make people stop paying attention to what you’re saying which could reduce the overall value that your social media presence has.

Respond to Comments Quickly… When it is Necessary

If someone asks a question or makes a comment on one of your posts, take a look at what they posted and see whether there’s a useful response that you can provide. But you don’t have to respond to everyone who writes something if your response will be useless. So for example if some users write “That video was good”, you don’t have to thank every one of them for their comment.

Have Social Media Only Promotions

This is a very good way to keep your readers interested in what you post and more likely to look at posts from your page that appear on their news feed. You can offer Facebook only coupon codes, discounts, promotions, etc. This will make your subscribers feel valued and they are more likely to keep an interest in your page for a long time.

Encourage People to Like Your Page

Not everyone will search out for your business Facebook fan page and like it. You need to inform people that it exists. This can be done in various ways, such as including links to your page in email messages, like in a footer on your sales receipts. You should also add social media buttons on your main website or your business blog. The more subscribers you have, the better it is for your business.

Posted on 11 April 2012

If you use the internet to advertise your business, one of your main concerns would probably be the cost of the advertising and whether it would actually be profitable for you, in the sense that your online ads bring you more sales than what you’ve spent on them. There are many types of companies that use the internet for advertising purposes. This ranges from individual marketers, small businesses, to multinational corporations. If you operate a small business, some would say that you’re already at a slight disadvantage when it comes to advertising. See, large companies such as Coca Cola or IBM have dedicated teams which work around the clock to design, test and run online advertisements. They can afford to burn through millions of dollars in advertising budgets simply to “try” whether a certain strategy would be successful or not. Obviously, you don’t have this privilege.

However, this doesn’t mean that you won’t succeed. There are some advantages with are unique to internet marketing and that you would not find in any other type of advertising solution. First is the exposure. In developed countries, nearly everyone has access to the internet in some way or form. This means that no matter who your target audience is, whether it’s young adults, business men, car owners, retirees, people who travel a lot, etc. they will be found online and there is a high chance that many of them use the internet to find information or to buy products or services that they would need for any reason. The second advantage of online advertising is the accessibility. In theory, anyone can advertise in any form. Sure, television ads, billboards or full page magazine ads don’t have a rule attached to them that they’re limited only to large corporations or to brands that are already famous. But the main barrier here would be the cost. Few small businesses can afford to make extensive use of these advertising methods, mainly due to the high cost of designing and publishing these ads. But with online advertising, everyone has the chance to put their message out in front of millions of viewers, all of that at a much lower cost than with any other method that you can use. You will also find that there are certain advertising methods which cost nothing in terms of money to use. The only thing that you would need to invest is your time, which will help you make the right choices as far as advertising your business online goes.

The main question remains: how do you find advertising solutions online which are both low cost and profitable. There are various ways to do so. However, business owners need to understand that saving money on online ads goes far beyond simply looking for the cheaper prices and also involves reducing wasted money. There are certain things that you, as a business owner, should do before you even look for ways to market your business in the online world.

Posted on 12 March 2012

There are quite a few mistakes that online entrepreneurs sometimes commit when they build an online business, or promote a brick and mortar business through the internet. Here are some last things that you should know about when you use online marketing. By avoiding these common mistakes, you will be able to do your online marketing activities with less potential problems and hassles.

Here are two more mistakes that you should know about:

Associating with rogue marketing services providers

There are a lot of individuals and companies which offer marketing services to businesses online, most of which focuses on getting traffic to your website. While hiring a company to provide you with marketing services can be quite useful and help your business a lot, you should be careful about who you hire, as this can cause problems for you if you hire a “rogue” operator.

There are plenty of ways to get traffic to a website, however not all of them are ethical or in accordance with the terms of services of search engines and other sites. Some rogue marketing providers may engage in practices such as blackhat SEO techniques, forum spamming, email spam, creating social media apps that redirect traffic to a site without the user’s consent, promoting websites through adware that is difficult for a user to get rid of, etc. If you want to build a long term business, then staying away from these types of practices is the way to go. If you aren’t careful about the marketing techniques that are used by your partners, you can find yourself in trouble, such as by getting your site penalized in search engines, taken down by your web host, banned from certain websites and generally gain a bad reputation for your business.

Having an unreliable website

Your website is probably going to be the main way that you connect with your target audience online, so the most important thing is that it works and works well all the time. The first thing to consider should be your choice of hosting. Make sure you do some research on the web host that you intend to use and see if they’ve had any reliability problems or other troubles that their users have reported. Stay away from free hosting services or small companies that charge very cheap rates, as they’re the least likely to give you reliable service.

Besides the hosting, another common source of problems is the site itself. If you use a content management system or an e-commerce platform, make sure that you’re picking a reliable product that can handle your websites traffic well. Do some research on any content delivery systems and plug ins that you intend to use on your site, so as to make sure that you will only be using the best ones.

By knowing and avoiding these common mistakes, you will make your online marketing experience more profitable, easier and the whole experience will be more pleasant, both for you as well as your website visitors.

Posted on 29 February 2012

If you’re going to be selling an info product, one of the things that you need to do to get the most sales is to understand who your target audience really is. This will help you set the price of your product at an appropriate level and also advertise, promote and market your product through the right channels. Understanding your audience means knowing who your potential buyers are going to be, as well as how much they would be willing to spend in order to find a solution to their problems or to answer the questions that they have. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your buyers:

How Motivated are They to Find a Solution to Their Problems?

Are your buyers people who are going to be really hungry for the information, or are they going to be people who will be merely curious about the niche? For example, if you create a beginners guide to online marketing, chances are that your buyers may not know that much about the niche and would be simply curious to see how online business works. However, if you’re selling a complete course on using social media to make money online, your buyers will already have some knowledge about the topic and have a stronger interest in it.

Have They Already Seen Plenty of Ads for Similar Products?

This depends on just how “unique” your product is. Is there a high chance that your potential buyers have already seen information about competing products and maybe even bought some of them? In this case, the price of your product will be a bit more important, as you will be competing for your buyers attention with other products out there.

Is Your Product Aimed at Newbies or People Who Already Have Experience?

Products that are at the introductory level and aimed at newcomers to a certain niche will usually do better if they’re priced at low, attractive rates such as $9.95 or $14.95. People who already have experience in a certain niche and are looking to expand their knowledge, on the other hand, are often willing to spend more money to get that information. They would be happy to pay more, as long as the product that they would be getting will genuinely give them what they’ve been looking for.

Do Your Buyers Spend a Lot of Time Online? What Sites do They Visit?

Knowing this will help you with your marketing and advertising. Is your target audience known for spending a lot of time on the internet each day? What kind of websites do they usually frequent? Do they visit niche related sites such as discussion forums? By knowing this, you can have a better idea as to where you can advertise your product for maximum exposure to your targeted audience. Remember that the more targeted your advertising will be, the more likely it will end up being seen by someone with an interest in what you’re going to be selling them online.

Posted on 26 October 2011

Once you have your products ready and your website up, then there is one important thing left to do for you: promoting the web store that you’ve just built. In many cases, this is going to get a little bit challenging, due to the fact that you are going to be competing directly against dozens of online retailers which are already more established in the industry. But it is by no means impossible. There are some things that you can do to ensure success as well as one good strategy that is used by many small online retailers:

Sell Globally – Promote Locally

Obviously, one of the main advantages of e-commerce is that you can sell your merchandise to buyers all around the world. This is the reason that most e-commerce sites ship globally. But going against corporations that have billion dollar budgets is not really a wise move. This is why you will need to first start promoting your website locally, in your own area and community. This is also how many of the world’s global corporations started out. Coca Cola first started selling their product locally before going global. You will also find that many large internet providers and wireless companies first started offering their services in the city where they were founded before expanding. Therefore, if you want to succeed online, you will need to follow their lead, even though you may not actually have an objective of starting a global online sales empire such as Amazon. Now how do you do all of this? It is actually quite simple and we will get into some ways that you can accomplish this in the next post.

Target Your Audience by Language

Of course, not everyone can do this as not everyone speaks another language. But targeting your audience by language is an efficient marketing tool. All you would need to do is to have multiple versions of your website in different languages, such as French, German, Spanish, etc. This has many advantages for the owner of an online shop. First, you would get access to more customers, who may not speak English and would be searching for websites in their own language. Second, promoting your website would become easier if you do this. While websites in English make up the vast majority of online content, there is a drawback to this. You will get increased competition and therefore would need to outrank many other sites in order to get some customers. But in terms of sites in other languages, there is less of them. The customer base may be smaller, but it is still there, in the millions. Therefore, doing your SEO, pay per click ads and social media posts in another language would mean that there would be less websites selling the same thing than you. This will simplify the promotional process and make it give you better results, faster.

Posted on 18 May 2011

In the past, we have talked about what a great tool social media can make when you are trying to promote your business online. But in order to get good results from your campaigns, you will need to do things the right way, rather than simply plunging into the social media world unprepared.

We have already made a comparison between paid and free social media marketing. While there are some differences between both types of advertising, the following tips will be valid for both paid and free advertising on different kinds of social networks. Here are some things to keep under consideration:

Will you do things yourself, or hire outside help?

Social media marketing is not complicated. However, just like any type of online project, it will require that you spend some time on it and acquire the necessary knowledge to do things right. You may want to spend about half an hour to an hour a day checking up on your campaigns and updating your pages. If you can’t do this, you may want to hire some outside help, either from a dedicated online marketing firm, or from a freelancer that is knowledgeable on social media marketing for small businesses.

Which networks will you use?

There are plenty of social networking sites out there. Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are some of the most popular ones, but there are also some small and emerging networks that are used by many people. Some of these smaller networks could be quite popular with people residing in a certain region. What you need to do is to figure out who your targeted audience is, and what networks they frequent. You will then be able to focus your marketing efforts on the social media sites which are most popular with your target audience.

How will you keep your audience interested?

Remember that social networking sites are places where new content is posted all the time, ever single second of every day. While users come to these sites to learn things and inform themselves about what their friends and local businesses are doing, remember that these sites are not an encyclopedia or business directory. As such, you need to keep your content fresh and interesting for your readers. This can be achieved in various ways. For example, if you run an auto customization business, you may want to put up pictures of work that you have recently done on customers cars. You can also put up info on upcoming promotions or events related to your business. While you don’t have to update your page every single day of the week, you will still need to put up updates on a regular basis.

By keeping these tips in mind, you will be able to draw a much bigger benefit from your presence on social media sites. It is always good to have a strategy in mind, but you might need to make some changes to it if you realize it is not giving you the desired effect, or if you want to try using a new social networking site that has just become popular.

Posted on 19 December 2010

As you are learning to earn money online, it is important to find out about various money making methods that you can use. Even though you may not be planning to use a certain method right away, it is always a good thing to know about various ways to make cash. This is in case one of your previous money earners dries up, you would always have a backup strategy in place.

Creating your own product

If you’ve been into the online money making scene for a while, you have probably seen the names of various gurus come up, such as Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, Jeff Walker and company. These people are without a doubt earning millions of dollars by selling something that a lot of people online are searching for: information.

Now, can you become as successful as them? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing that is true, it’s the fact that if you make significant efforts, you are likely to earn a decent amount of money by creating and selling your own informational products online. But first, don’t get sucked into all of the hype out there. Success in this industry doesn’t come overnight. Even the top names in internet marketing did not become rich the first time they have put something up for sale online.

The first thing that you would need is an idea for a product. Ask yourself, what are your areas of knowledge? And you don’t need to be a professional on the subject matter either. You simply need to have gained a level of knowledge on the subject matter that is above that of the average person. If you take a look at many of the info products out there today, they consist of little more than information that is either simply common sense or freely available online if one would spend a few hours searching for it. The info is simply neatly arranged and rewritten in a way to make it simpler to understand for the target audience.

You would also need a web site, payment system and sales page for your product. Notice those long sales letters, filled with underlined words, calls to action, bullet lists of how the product will help the customer, etc? You can easily find freely available or inexpensive templates for your sales page that will make it resemble that of the top gurus. Of course, the words on the sales page matter: they will basically say to the reader “You have a problem, and I have a solution for you.” The most professional sales pages are designed by professional copywriters who charge thousands of dollars for their services. At the beginning, you probably won’t be ready to put up such an investment on your first product. You should know, however, that there are freelancers out there who can write a decent sales copy and even customize your product’s complete web site for around $50 to $100.

Once everything is set up, now is the time to promote your product. There are various ways to do so, but one of the most effective one is to advertise by buying ad space on websites, blogs or forums that are related to your niche. For example, if you are selling a dog grooming guide, you could buy ad space on a dog related forum.

Posted on 03 November 2010

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can be a great marketing tool if you know how to use them the right way. They can also be an incredible source of valuable information if you know what to look for. Social media sites can teach you a lot about your target audience, and their needs and wants.

Search

Take the time to do a series of searches related to your niche on social media every week. Pick a set of terms, or phrases that relate directly to what you’re doing, and search them on social media. The results will contain people talking about your niche, and what’s going on in it. If you take the time to read through some of those results, you’ll get two things out of it. First, you’ll get new friends and followers. By taking the time to connect with the people you find through these searches, you’re gaining high quality friends and followers. Second, you’re gaining valuable information about what people in your niche are talking about. The more you know about their interests, the better off you’ll be in the long run.

Polls

Set up a poll on your website that asks questions about your customers, and their wants and needs, and what they think of your products. Use social media to spread that poll around to your friends and followers. If you’ve been using social media the right way, and interacting with them on a regular basis, they’ll most likely leap at the chance to give you feedback. If you don’t get the response you’re hoping for right off the bat, create a contest around the poll, and offer one lucky poll taker a prize.

Questions

If you want to know something about your customers, just ask. By asking questions on social media sites, you’re achieving two different things. First, you’re interacting with your friends and followers in a meaningful way. Second, if they’re answering your questions, you’re learning about them and their needs at the same time.

By spending some time with social media, you can turn it into a valuable market research tool. The more you can learn about your customers, the better equipped you’ll be to sell your products to them.

Posted on 01 October 2010

A strong internet marketing campaign is nothing without traffic. The more traffic you can generate for your website, the more potential customers you’ll have looking at your products. There are a few important things you can keep in mind in order to help you drive traffic to your site, and ultimately, generate more sales.

Research

Do some research to determine what qualities your audience is looking for in a website. If you already have a little bit of traffic, offer your current audience a poll about what features they’d like to see you implement in the future. If you’re just starting out, take a look at other sites in your niche, and see what types of features they’re offering their audience. Do everything in your power to offer your audience a rich set of attractive features.

Strong Writing

No matter what niche you’re in, chances are, you’re not alone. That means your content has to stand out if you’re going to succeed in driving more traffic to your site. Take the time to write strong articles, and other interesting content for your site. Don’t just try to recreate what other sites in your niche have done, try to do something different, and unique. If you’re having trouble writing high quality content, there’s no shame in hiring a writer.

Advertise

In addition to the Google and Facebook ads you’re probably already familiar with, you can also set up deals with larger sites in your niche whereby you can get an ad placed on their site for a fixed amount of time. Be sure to get any and all information you can about their traffic, and their audience before agreeing to place the ad on their site. Also, don’t advertise on sites that don’t relate directly to your audience. You’re more likely to get new visitors from your target audience that haven’t heard of your site than you are to get visitors from a different audience all together.

So remember, do some research about your visitors’ wants and needs, set your writing apart from the crowd in some way, and advertise with larger sites in your niche. These things will help you to generate more traffic to your site in no time.

Posted on 20 September 2010

If you’re interested in starting a website, but you’ve never done it before, there are a few things you’re going to want to know before you get started. You need a few essential tools and services before you can really get your site off the ground.

Hosting

You’re going to need a place to house the files for your new website. There are a number of hosting options available to you, some of which are free, some of which are extremely expensive. It’s important to know your needs before you pick a hosting provider. The free, and cheap providers tend to be lacking in functionality, so it’s important to know what features you intend to put on your site before picking a hosting provider. If you don’t plan on developing the site yourself, ask the developer you have hired what sort of features you’ll need, and whether or not they have any hosting recommendations.

Domain Name

Your domain name should be representative of the content on your site, and if possible it should include a keyword relevant to any searches your target audience might do. Your domain name should be short, and easy to remember. If you can get a .com name rather than a .net, .org, or any of the other suffixes, that’s best. Most people try to go to the .com version of a site first, and then think about the others. As with hosting, there are a number of companies you can register a domain with. In fact, the hosting company you’re using probably offers domain registrations.

Content

You’ll also need a website full of content. If you’re not comfortable designing your own site, you can always hire a firm or a freelance contractor to do it for you. There are also a number of freely available content management systems like WordPress that make developing a website much easier. No matter what your budget, there’s a way to get a site up and running. Once your site is up and running, you’ll want to add content on a regular basis. By updating a site frequently, you are actually boosting your search rank, as search engines look at how frequently a site is updated when determining search rank.

There are a number of ways to get a new site up and running, and no matter what your budget, you can get started in a short amount of time.

Posted on 17 September 2010

So, you’re thinking about starting an online business, but you’re not sure about what steps to take to get it off the ground. While there is no “one size fits all” method for reaching success, there are a few basic steps you should take when you’re starting out. It’s important to start with a strong foundation for your online business, and these steps will help you do just that.

Define The Purpose

Your online business should be based on a goal, or a series of goals. Those goals will dictate the other steps in your business strategy, so it’s important to establish them before doing anything else. For example, if your business is geared at selling a product, your strategy will be different than if it’s geared at getting subscribers, or making ad revenue.

Define Your Target Audience

It’s important to know who you’ll be gearing your online business toward. Different audiences require different marketing approaches, Take the time do do some research on who is interested in your niche. Is your audience mostly male, or female? What age group do they fall into? What level of income do they have? What other interests do they have? All of this information can help you to create a more effective marketing strategy for your new business.

Look At The Competition

Your target audience probably has certain expectations from a site like yours based on what other sites are already doing. Take the time to look at your competition, and see what they’re doing. You should be offering all of the basic features they are, along with any additional features that you feel you can provide to your customers.

Marketing Strategy

Now that you know a lot about your audience, and what they expect, it’s time to form a marketing strategy. There are a lot of different ways to go about marketing your product, including ads, social media, and article marketing, but you’re going to have to pick the strategies that work best for you. There’s no guarantee that every strategy will work for every online business, so pick and choose your methods carefully based on what you know about your audience.

Learn And Earn

Online business requires you to learn as you go. Test different marketing strategies against one another, and see what works best for you. Keep looking for new methods to reach your target audience, and keep looking for ways to lower your costs. As technology changes, so too does online business.

Keep these five steps in mind as you start out, and you’ll be off to a good start with online business.